Rapid development in information technology has raised consumer expectations and the demand for electronic devices with superior audio and video quality. The large volume of conventional cathode ray tube (CRT) displays makes them unsuitable for use in multimedia applications. Therefore, many flat panel displays such as liquid crystal display (LCD), plasma display panel (PDP), and field emission display (FED) have been recently developed. LCD displays are thin, light, short and small monitors, and they are thus becoming the mainstream display apparatus.
Rapid progress in both optical technology and semiconductor technology has enabled liquid crystal displays (LCD) to be applied in a diverse range of electrical products. Moreover, with the advantages of high image quality, compact size, light weight, low driving voltage, and low power consumption, LCDs have been introduced into portable computers, personal digital assistants, color televisions, and are gradually replacing cathode ray tubes (CRT) used in conventional displays.
Furthermore, the market share, and size of large size LCDs have both increased and currently some of the large size LCDs are bigger than conventional PDP displays. Mainstream LCDs use a backlight type of liquid crystal display comprising a liquid crystal panel in the front portion and a backlight module in the rear portion. Therefore, large size LCDs need a large enough backlight module to light up the liquid crystal panel.
LCDs normally utilize cold cathode fluorescent lamps in the backlight module and optical films to uniformly distribute the light to the liquid crystal layer of the liquid crystal panel. The cold cathode fluorescent lamps, the optical films, and even the liquid crystal panel are fixed on a rear bezel, and the rear bezel is further fixed to a wall mounting bracket or a foot stand to allow the LCD can be hung on a wall or stand alone.
Large size liquid crystal displays are increasingly large and the strength of the rear bezel must necessarily be increasingly strong. The weight and tooling cost of a conventional metal rear bezel are therefore also increasing.